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Face’s real name isn’t Templeton Peck, but then again, it’s not Templeton Peck’s real name either. Like so many other things in both their lives, the identity is a cast-off, a hand-me-down. It doesn’t matter. It’s still one of Face’s favourites, comfortable and well-worn and it was already broken in when he got it, easy to just slip into and make his own.
Peck is Richard Bancroft now and has been for long enough that the name is beginning to stick and become solid. His hair is silver to match his tongue and he walks with a slender cane to support his bad leg, the one that took him out of the game. He still manages to make the limp look elegant and distinguished.
The group around the grave is breaking up, beginning to disperse. Face and his CO, and Bancroft and his, are soon the only ones left. Face watches Bosco head over to his family, hug his parents and shake his uncle B.A.’s hand. They stand around and talk for while before they all walk over to the van and get in.
“Family reunion?” Face asks, motioning to Bosco who’s play-fighting with B.A. over who gets to drive.
“I think Al was going to ask them to talk to Bea,” Bancroft says. “That girl can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Keeps getting into fights. She wants to join the Army and be a Ranger.”
He gives a faint smile, and Hannibal chuckles in response. “Sounds like someone else we know.”
“A couple of someones,” Face grins. “Think she’ll go through with it?”
“When Bea’s got her mind set on something it usually happens,” Bancroft says. Then he throws a sideways glance at Hannibal who’s just about to light up a cigar. “It was the emphysema that killed him, you know.”
Hannibal doesn’t say anything, just taps the unlit cigar against his hand a few times and then puts it back in his pocket. He probably won’t smoke for a couple of days but if Face knows his CO, which he does, it won’t last for long.
The three of them stand in silence for a while and Face watches Bancroft out of the corner of his eye and tries not to think too hard of the day when he might have to step into those shoes as well. If Hannibal is thinking along the same lines, he’s not saying anything. A few moments later, Bancroft gives the headstone a stiff salute, turns on his heel and walks away. Face and Hannibal repeat the motion and follow him out of the graveyard over to where their two Murdocks are catching up with each other.
The code-name ‘Murdock’ dates all the way back to WWI, always given to the pilots who got the most miraculously crazy shit done. Face sometimes wonders if they make sure to give the name to pilots who already are nuts, or if it’s the legend itself that somehow drives the bearer insane.
The H.M. Murdock who precedes their own was declared sane long ago even if Face privately thinks that no one who wears that name will ever be anywhere close to normal. He’s still tall and skinny but his back is a little bowed now and his hair is all but gone, only a few thin wispy strands still cover his scalp. He sits on a bench and watches their Murdock play fetch with Billy and Billy the Second. The advantage to having imaginary dogs is that you never have to bury them.
“Any regrets, kid?” Bancroft asks softly.
Face shakes his head. Since that day in L.A. twenty years ago when he tried to pick this man’s pocket and was set on the road that led him here, he never looked back once. Okay, things didn’t turn out exactly the way he expected, but nothing ever does where people named Hannibal Smith are concerned.
“We got our pardons, eventually,” Bancroft says as if he can read Face’s mind. Maybe he can. They are, after all, essentially the same person. “You will too.”
“And there’ll be another bunch of wrongfully accused federal fugitives to take our places?” Face asks with a grin.
Bancroft doesn’t say anything, he just smiles that smile he has, the one that makes you think he knows everything there is to know about everyone.
Templeton Peck is a cast-off and a hand-me-down, but he’s also something else, something Face never actually thought he’d have. Templeton Peck is a heritage.
Face is fairly sure that there’s already a soldier named John Smith somewhere, climbing the ranks, coming up with plans that are just crazy enough to work. Maybe he smokes cigars too and maybe he’s fascinated by the ancient general who marched elephants over the Alps. One day, many years from now, he’s going to meet up with a kid who’s just a little too smart and charming for his own good, and sooner or later the latest incarnation of H.M. Murdock is going to find his way to them because the H.M. Murdocks of the world always do. Face is also fairly sure that little Bea Baracus will end up enlisting in the Army despite her parents’ misgivings, that she’ll become the most kick-ass Ranger in history and make her uncle and her grandpapa proud.
One way or another, there’ll always be an A-team.
-fin-